In spite of the relentless and nonstop rhetoric that is violently forced down our throats 24/7 that is telling us the decision not to participate in the capitalist U.S. electoral process is an act of human betrayal, the majority of eligible people still do not participate in this process. What that means is the majority of people who are at least 18 years of age, who qualify for all the bourgeois criteria to vote e.g. being "citizens" of this capitalist country while having no so-called legal restrictions that prevent them from voting, still choose not to participate. Of course, many of you reading to this point are going to have an extremely difficult time believing this claim because we are all trained to just accept the capitalist narrative as the universal truth. And, if they are consistently saying everyone with any morality and integrity is voting, then it must be true right? Wrong. Its not true and anyone who can pass basic math can figure it out for yourself. According to all policy institutes that track voting like the Bipartisan Policy Center, U.S. Census, U.S. and state by state election commissions, etc., presidential elections consistently, and by far, bring out the highest number of voters. So, every four years that there is a general election for president, these are the elections where most people vote. Time and time again this is true. The election in 2008, where Obama was elected, had the highest voter turnout of any election in the previous 20 years and that election saw 62% of eligible voters participate. Over the last 20 years, the average has been 57.5% of voters participating in presidential elections. Non-presidential elections consistently see participation fall off as much as 6 or 7% so on average, about 50% of eligible voters participate overall. If you average for a longer period, like the last 30 years, the numbers drop below 50%, which supports my statement that the majority of people don't vote. In other words, according to the 2010 Census, there are 321 million people living in this country. Approximately two hundred and forty million of those people (240) are 18 or older and approximately 190 million of those people meet the bourgeois criteria previously mentioned to be eligible to vote. What all this means is approximately 100 million so-called eligible people in this country, despite the onslaught of propaganda calling them lazy, ill responsible, and terrible people, DO NOT VOTE!

It is absurd and ridiculous to dismiss such a significant number of people as an anomaly. Clearly, this phenomenon is worth discussing, yet the question why such a large percentage of people are refusing to participate is never seriously addressed within bourgeois capitalist media circles. Why? Why? I believe the reason is because it is so much easier to just dismiss 100 million intelligent people - a portion that would surpass the population of most countries on Earth - instead of dealing with the reasons they won't participate. Could it be because these people know enough about truth and are therefore not swayed by weak propaganda? Maybe they are not buying the capitalist lies that "people died for right the vote and therefore if you don't vote, you have no right to complain?" First off, the capitalist system was the mechanism that repressed so many people's ability to vote. The state is the entity that enforced discriminatory voting laws against Africans, women, etc., so its stupid for that same state to somehow pose as the mouthpiece for those rights today. They have absolutely no credibility and everyone who paid the physical price for voting rights - people like Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., etc., have not minced words in telling you so. What those courageous folks have said is they didn't die for the vote, they died for freedom, and voting was simply a tactic to obtain freedom. You see, the capitalist system has people confused about the difference between principles and tactics. Principles are values you live by that you never compromise. People die living by principles. Tactics are methods you use to achieve your principles. You change tactics based on effectiveness. Kwame Ture and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) articulated voting as a tactic, meaning it was a method used to achieve freedom. Once he realized that tactic was not an effective one to bring needed power to African people, Ture changed tactics and began pursuing revolutionary politics where voting was not the focus. What the capitalist system is attempting to do is convince everyone that there is absolutely no other methodology available for social change outside of the capitalist system. If they can convince people of this, than voting has to become a principle and since this principle is our only weapon, then any refusal to vote can be seen as betrayal. That's why so many people use shaming tactics to attack people who do not vote.

Clearly, we must build a mass movement that attacks the capitalist system on all levels. This means a diversity of ideologies and tactics. Those who advance electoral politics should continue to advance that work, but you must stop acting like those tactics are actually principles and therefore the only viable method of creating change in this world. Also, you must see the necessity to build a movement behind your electoral work that pushes the capitalist system for reforms because without that, all you are doing is being pimped by the system without having any mechanism to hold the system accountable. Equally as clear, let's stop acting like voting is the be all, end all. Let's stop saying "this election is the most important one (the same thing that's said for every election) and if you don't participate, you are betraying humanity." This is an absurd argument which ignores the outstanding organizing contributions of organizations like the Black Panther Party, Universal Negro Improvement Association, Nation of Islam, American Indian Movement, and many other independent organizations that did not have platforms focused around voting. I would argue each of these groups, and many, many, more, have done more for capacity building in communities than all of the voting combined. I would also claim that SNCC, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, although organizations largely responsible for winning the vote, didn't themselves endorse or engage in running for office. And, if those organizations lived on influential levels today, I'd argue they would be pursuing courses of action that do not focus on bourgeois voting. Finally, from the African liberation movement, there are plenty of independent organizations today - the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the African People's Socialist Party (Uhuru Movement), Nation of Islam, Black United Front, and of course the All African People's Revolutionary Party - that make daily and substantive contributions to African liberation without being based on a voting platform. This reality is true for all communities. Instead of shaming people into voting, the principled and more scientific call is for everyone to belong to organizations. That's been our call for almost 50 years and it will continue to be our call because its the correct call. Its the correct strategy, and its the correct course of action that will push people to realize how ineffective it is to fight for freedom based solely on the tools provided to us by our enemies.

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I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle." Our brains are muscles. Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve. Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"